


turning saints into the sea

by boleynqueens



Category: The Tudors (TV), Tudor History - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-13
Updated: 2016-08-13
Packaged: 2018-08-08 12:03:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,370
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7757152
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/boleynqueens/pseuds/boleynqueens
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He knows he'd do anything for his best friend, anything he asked, and figures Henry knows this, too.</p>
            </blockquote>





	turning saints into the sea

**Author's Note:**

> J.M. Barrie — 'Dreams do come true, if only we wish hard enough. You can have anything in life if you will sacrifice everything else for it.'
> 
> Charles Dickens — 'I loved [them] against reason, against promise, against peace, against hope, against happiness, against all discouragement that could be.'
> 
> The Killers — 'Jealousy, turning saints into the sea/Swimming through sick lullabies/Choking on your alibis'
> 
> author's note: this is expository-ish, plays with tenses etc...trying something new, i guess~

**present**

**28th of June**

Margot 'accidentally' cast her wedding date on her younger brother's birthday. Apologized profusely for her _'so-called'_ error, _after_ invites were already sent out.

It's petty, and Henry tells himself he doesn't care (tells everyone else that, too, to _insultingly_ disbelieving reactions)-- it's only his twenty-third, after all. Not a milestone, or anything.

_Whatever_.  

_Forgive him_ for wanting to be showered with adoration on _his_ birthday. _Forgive him_ for wanting to be the center of attention. _Forgive him_ for being _particularly_ sensitive to birthday slights, ever since his paternal grandmother wrote his birth year down incorrectly in _his_ baby-book. 

His tie feels too tight and he fidgets with it as he takes a respectful sip of the terrible (albeit expensive) champagne.

_Everyone gets smashed at weddings_ , but Henry doesn't drink anymore…or, not the hard stuff, anyways. And never in excess. His father's alcoholism has made him too cautious for that.

He leans forward in his chair, whispers to Anne that he's going outside for some fresh air. Her brow crinkles in concern and he kisses the furrowed spot before getting up.

* * *

Henry quit smoking a year ago. It seems that leaning against a brick wall and sulking is something that just feels _stupid_ without a cigarette in hand.

_Brandon hasn't quit, though_ , and it's with that thought that he pivots, about to head back into the reception hall…only to run into his best friend, instead.

His best friend, and his wife, standing side by side (a rare image if there ever was one).

A vague, jealous thought pierces through him: that a stranger would think they make an attractive couple. She is stunning, wearing a gown of gold that fits snugly around her slender waist, emphasizing the attribute. A necklace of sapphires drip over her swan-like neck, drawing attention to that particular quality as well.

They have similar dark hair, Brandon's curls around his ears and Anne's is pinned with drops of pearls, leaving the nape of her neck exposed. They both have dimpled chins, both have skin so pale it almost glimmers, like moonlight.

Brandon is equally stunning, of course, dashing in the formal wear he hates, tie already loosened around his neck. The span of his waist is thirty inches, (he measures it, Henry knows, _like a loser_ ), tapering down from the broadness of his chest.  

Their contrast is attractive as well: Anne is dainty and petite, Brandon's height towers over hers. Both of their eyes are large, fringed with long lashes; but Brandon's are the blue of some Greek myth ( _the pool that Narcissus fell in, perhaps_ ), and Anne's are dark where his are light, the darkness of earth kissed by rain after a war.

Earth and water: two elements one needs to survive. 

A stranger wouldn't know, of course, that the animosity between the two borders on acidic, that any sort of coupling between the two would be laughable.

Anne holds a paper plate in her hands, a cupcake upon it, and Brandon pricks the frosting with a small candle. He brings it aflame with a flick of his lighter, and they sing 'Happy Birthday' in unison.

Henry laughs and blows the candle out.

* * *

The three of them are in the back seat of an ordered limousine. Henry didn't ask, or care to ask, why Brandon joined them (shocked as he was by Anne's lack of protest to his presence), just assumed that he was going to be dropped off at his apartment along the way.

They're gossiping about James Stuart, Margot's new husband, the age difference between the two. Brandon cracks some joke (what happens next makes him forget it entirely) and Henry laughs, pushes his shoulder with his hand.

His friend catches his hand, firm, and Henry finds himself caught in a stare with him as well. 

"Can I kiss you?" Brandon asks.

Henry startles and spews nervous laughter, a knee-jerk reaction.

" _Charles_ ," he admonishes (his first name is one Henry only ever uses to tease or scold him), scoffing…his hand is still in Anne's, _for God's sake_ , but she hasn't gasped or done… _anything_ in reaction to the inquiry, and _that_ makes Henry falter somewhat), "that's not… _what_?"

_Is he drunk?_

_No_ , there's a clarity to his eyes, nothing on his breath but cool mint, gaze level and steady with Henry's.

_Is he joking?_

No, Henry's the only one that laughed.

Brandon nods towards Anne and Henry turns his head.

She smiles, kindly, and gives a little nod herself, a reassuring squeeze of her hand over his.

Some questions of clarification flit through his mind but die on the tip of his tongue.

_'Ask for forgiveness, not permission', as the saying goes_ … _but that's bullshit_ ( _bullshit_ that's caused more than one of his break-ups with Anne)… _but didn't she just give it_ … _is this a test_?

_They wouldn't test me on my birthday_.

"Only if you want me to, of course," Brandon says, wincing, lashes downcast.

He figures the wince means Brandon has misinterpreted his silence as disdain, mistaken his shock for disgust,  his indecision for unwillingness.

To correct the mistake, Henry yanks the collar of his shirt forward with one hand (fingers still intertwined with Anne's with his other, because that's comforting, somehow) and presses his mouth against Brandon's in a kiss that's wanting and open and soft and it's easy, _so easy_ , but then, _it's not like it's the first time_ they've kissed…

* * *

**past**

The first time, it's summer. They're sitting on the floor and playing cards.

It's two of Brandon's favorite places to be in the world, all rolled up into one: by Henry's side and in the treehouse on the Tudor property.

Up there, it doesn't seem to matter so much that Henry's heir to a grand fortune and Brandon's heir to nothing but debt. It doesn't matter that Henry lives in a manor and Brandon lives in its renovated garage, that Henry's father is a CEO and Brandon's is his gardener, just one lucky enough to have saved Henry Tudor Sr.'s life overseas during their deployment.

Lucky enough to be thanked for doing so via employment.

They are both fourteen, and the skinniest they'll ever be (though they don't know it). Henry is already 5'9 and Brandon's gaining on him, height-wise…they're _shooting up like weeds,_ according to Mary Rose, a remark coupled with a toss of glistening auburn hair, to which Henry had responded: _fuck you, I'm a flower, not a weed_. His sister had responded in kind, with a kick to his shin: _fuck you, that sounds gay_.

Their next few years will be spent weight training, gaining muscle in ripples and waves, sweaty grips on bars and filled with the metallic smell of gyms, the salt and chlorine of swimming pools.

Henry has his cards in one hand, a peach just grabbed from the mini fridge ( _it's a rich people treehouse, after all_ , the wood paneling nicer than what's in Brandon's bedroom, hooked up to electricity and everything, large and lined with shelves of books and piles of board games, real glass on the window) in the other.

He takes a bite and the juice drips down his chin, spilling down the corners of his mouth.

Brandon laughs.

"What?" Henry asks, eyebrows raised over his cards, spanned out like a fan.

"You're a mess," Brandon says, tapping his own chin.

Henry worries his bottom lip, glistening with juice, rounded and plump as the curve of the peach he still holds, with his teeth. Puts his cards down to wipe at the his mouth with the back of his hand.

"Did I get it?" he asks.

"No, it's all over your face…here."

Brandon puts his hand of cards face-down on the floor, leans over the cards in between them to drag his thumb over Henry's chin.

His thumbnail catches over Henry's bottom lip, accidentally (although, years later, he'll still wonder if it was _really_ accidentally or _accidentally-on-purpose_ ). He's close enough to count the freckles on his cheeks, to see the sunlight, slanting through the window, cast across his face. It turns his eyes, heavily lidded, a kaleidoscope of verdant blue, lights the red in his brown hair aglow.

Feels his gaze magnetize to Henry's mouth, cast down. Finds himself caught on the artful dip of it, the light and faded cut on the divot between his nose and mouth, on his upper lip ( _a cut from…shaving_ , seems most likely).  

Brandon withdraws, panic blooming in his chest. It's a similar sensation to all the times he's been caught doing something he's not supposed to ( _hand in the cookie-jar, super-glued vase_ , _stolen porn magazines_ , _watching television past midnight_ …), except worse, somehow.

"Maybe you should just get a napkin or something," he mutters, hand trembling as he reaches for the open bottle of beer at his side. Henry pilfered it from the kitchen and brought it up; they've been passing it back and forth.

"Your turn," Henry says, quietly.

Brandon glances up at him, sees him hold out the piece of fruit from the other side, the unbitten one.  

He must flash some sort of hesitancy, because Henry pushes, still:

"It's good. Try it."

Takes it from his hand, gingerly, before taking a bite.

Juice spills, sweet as nectar, both into his mouth and out of it.

Henry slides, on his knees, towards him, over the cards.

Swipes his thumb over Brandon's mouth and stares, lips twitching in a smirk as he does.

Brandon is stunned, but not unwilling. He knows he'd do anything for his best friend, anything he asked, and figures Henry knows this, too.

Henry dips his head and captures Brandon's bottom lip in between his mouth, sucks the juice off of it in a careful sip. Repeats the action on his top lip before he presses his mouth to his in a kiss. The fruit rolls out of his hand, slips out of his grasp, forgotten.

It's a soft question of a kiss, gentle as any prayer. He tastes beer and peach, sour colliding with sweet.  

Everything feels both impossibly still and quiet in the moment. Brandon's eyes are open, Henry's are closed, lashes in points like little, red-gold stars upon summer-golden skin.

Brandon closes his eyes, nudges the bridge of his nose against his friend's.

It's not his first kiss (or Henry's, he knows, _that_ was Catalina Aragon), of course, but it's certainly theirs.

The sound of gravel, crunched under tires, drifts in through the open window. Henry jerks away so suddenly that Brandon almost falls.

He stands, hurriedly, and the last thing Brandon sees of him before he disappears from view is his hands, gripping the top rung of the ladder.

His hands, drumming against the top. And a wink, so quick Brandon almost misses it.

Their game is ruined, all the cards pushed around by their knees in a disarray similar to his present state of mind. The peach, twice bitten ( _'twice bitten, once shy' isn't that how the saying goes?_ ), has rolled over onto the King of Hearts.  

* * *

The second time (the treehouse, again, this time late at night, lights off) Brandon is braver. He counts the seconds they're kissing and reaches for the button of Henry's jeans when he reaches three hundred.

"What are you doing?"

_Three hundred and ten_ and Henry's hand is over his, pushing it away.

"This is just _practice_ ," Henry scoffs, "for girls."

"Oh?"

"Yeah," he says, rolling over (they were lying down, before, side by side on a throw blanket on the floor) onto this back.

Brandon rolls over onto his back, sighs as he looks up at the ceiling, counts the glow-in-the-dark stars plastered above.

Henry places a cigarette (Marlboro Lights, always, filched from Margot's room…he complains of the 'girlishness' but keeps the boxes, Brandon notices, probably because of the shiny gold on the front) in between chapped lips and Brandon reaches over to light it, the habit of doing so instinctual by now. 

The tip of it burns bright in the darkness. Henry passes it over, like a joint (both are loathe to admit it, but they can't smoke more than half of one without coughing).

"Well," Brandon says, taking a drag, "they say 'practice makes perfect.'"

"Exactly," Henry replies, sliding a hand under his head, "and there's a _lot_ to practice. I don't read the dumb magazines my sisters get for _entertainment's_ sake."

And so, they practice.

Intermittently, sometimes spontaneously.

Henry brings a stack of magazines up to the treehouse: _Cosmopolitan_ , _Seventeen_ , _Glamour_. They circle sections together in Sharpie.

Margot and Mary Rose accuse the mailman of theft while Henry feigns ignorance. They call the subscription customer service phone number and bicker into their cell phones while he slurps his cereal and milk.

It all works out, in the end: Henry calls himself, pitches his voice high and charms the customer service rep better than he figures either of them could ever hope to do, gets the subscriptions renewed free of charge. His sisters give up and buy the magazines along with their iced coffees at chain bookstores, instead.

_Win-win_.   

And so, they read:

Girls like it when you put your hand on the small of their back when you kiss them. They like French kissing, neck kissing, earlobe biting, lip biting, when you play with their hair. They like circles drawn around their belly buttons with the pads of your fingertips, palms that brush over their shirts, over their chests. Under their shirt, lightly swept against until nipples harden ( _it's hard_ , Henry says, once, and Brandon almost has a heart attack, wills the pressure mounting upwards down but then, _good_ , _that's supposed to mean it's working_ , and he relaxes: he meant the peak under Henry's palm on Brandon's chest, not the… _other one_ ).

They like slow undress and teasing, hands that slide over the curved bows of their hips, the dips of their waists. Closed mouth kisses that lead to open ones, tongues that slip out to trace their bottom lips lightly during them. Kisses that trace paths down rib cages, just over the waistline of their jeans....   

So, they do all that.

_Again and again and again…_

* * *

They go to a party at the end of the summer, Francis Valois'. They're known for being wilder than most: he's French, apparently the French are 'loose', _it's like…a thing_.

Brandon is one and a half beers and twenty dollars richer from playing pool when he sees Henry.

Or, rather, sees Andrea Hastings straddling Henry. Her legs hang off the side of a suede, armless chair, his hand is fisted in a wash of gold.

As if he can tell he's being watched, Henry open his eyes.

Brandon doesn't look away, and neither does Henry, who continues to kiss the girl as he continues to stare.  

He smirks, raises his second bottle of beer in a salute. Fakes an insouciance he doesn’t feel.

Henry returns the gesture with a wink (as if to say, _practice makes perfect_ ), a one-finger-at-a-time wave with the hand not currently carded in her hair. Closes his eyes and deepens the kiss, pulls her in closer.

Ten minutes later, Brandon flirts with Alison Browne.

Five minutes after that, he makes out with her, pressed up against a wall.

> _Practice makes perfect_.

If her reaction's any indication… _it certainly does_.

* * *

The beginning of the end happens as it always does: when you least expect it.

It's two years after their first Valois party. This one is their…Brandon doesn't know, honestly, he's lost count. _Thirtieth_?

This is the fifth Valois party to have fencing, in any case.  

By the time Brandon's fifty dollars richer (bets placed on himself) he sits on the grass with Will Compton, drinks greedily from a bottle of Gatorade.

Valois endeavors to make the wager 'more interesting': one side is anonymous, the players emerge from a white tent already masked and geared.

Henry enters, and almost everyone bets on him against an anonymous player.

Which is unfortunate for them, because for the first time in _ever_ , Henry gets his ass handed to him in the sport by someone not Brandon.

By a small figure, at least a foot shorter than him and several pounds lighter.

A small figure that pulls their helmet off, whose inky hair tumbles out in long and luxuriant waves.

Two spots of red, staining Henry's cheeks and spreading. Henry, looking very much like a deer caught in the headlights (the girl's expression is coolly unaffected in contrast, as if she's well-accustomed to this sort of reaction) as she pulls him up by hand.

"Where'd you learn to--"

"France," she answers, grinning, blithely energetic as she whirls around to collect ample winnings.  

Brandon follows Henry's gaze as it follows her. He follows it the rest of the night.

It's the first time he does. And yet Brandon knows, even then ( _knows_ , with a certainty that feels like drowning)...it won't be the last. 

* * *

**28th of june**

**present:**

"What… _is_ this?" Henry asks, cautiously, looking between the two of them.

"Call it a preview," Anne answers, head tilted to the side, "of your birthday gift. If you want it, that is."

He rolls his eyes at the cryptic nature of her words, looks over to Brandon for clarification.

"And that would be…?"

"Both of us. Or, all of us, rather," Brandon quips, batting his eyelashes and exchanging a smirk with Anne, who giggles ( _and really, what…the fuck…is **that**?_ ).

"But you two…hate each other."

"True," she lilts, resting her head on his shoulder as she says, "but we love _you_. And he asked me what you wanted for your birthday, so…I told him about your dream."

Brandon's shoulders shake in barely suppressed laughter, fist over his mouth.

" _Anne_ ," Henry whines, blush rising to his cheeks, "that was _private_. And dreams are symbolic, not literal--"

"Yes," Anne interrupts, smoothly, "you _symbolically_ want to have sex with both of us. And you _literally_ want to be the center of attention. Why not put the two together?"

"What…you two…planned this?"

"Versailles style suite," Brandon replies, slipping a plastic card from the front pocket of his suit jacket, "resplendent with mirrors...for our favorite narcissist."

"The safety word is 'loyal'," Anne explains (Brandon snorts and she lifts her head from Henry's shoulder, just to glare at him for doing so), "and we brainstormed--"

"I'm sorry, you ' _brainstormed_ '--"

"Hush, _yes_ …a position that won't require Brandon and I," (Brandon mouths, mocking the elocution, _Brandon and I_ , with an exaggerated sneer and Henry tries to stifle his laugh, turns it into a cough), "to look at each other, much. Although we're open to suggestions, of course. It's _your_ birthday, after all."

Henry frowns, considering.

"Tell me what," he whispers, taps the spot on the line of his jaw closest to his ear.

Anne leans in and does, whispers the plan in detail, into his ear, her hand cupped over her mouth.  

When she's done Henry repeats the request to Brandon, who copies her reaction (murmurs it, hand cupped over his mouth as well, and _both_ , one after the other, has to be something like…the _most_ adult version of the telephone game Henry's ever played).

" _I'm_ the center?" Henry asks.

They nod in unison.

"Well, then…happy birthday to _me_."

The shock is soon eclipsed by arousal: mere seconds after those wondrously whispered words, Anne has pulled him into a crushing kiss and Brandon is shucking his jacket down and off his arms.

Henry's hands find her waist, pulling her flush against him. Anne's hands are flat against the planes of his chest, Brandon's pull the hem of his shirt up and out of his pants from behind. He feels a kiss pressed against the back of his neck and he gasps into her mouth, overwhelmed by the simultaneous sensation of a kiss on the lips and a kiss on the skin. 

> _Forgive him for wanting to be showered with adoration on his birthday. Forgive him for wanting to be the center of attention…_

And here are both: attention and adoration, in spades.

> _Earth and water, in equal measure._

_(He needs both to survive.)_

**Author's Note:**

> margot tudor = margaret tudor
> 
> andrea hastings = anne hastings (mistress of henry viii)
> 
> alison browne = anne browne (wife of charles brandon)


End file.
